new labour at work
DESCRIPTION
New Labour at work. Long-term unemployment and the geography of opportunity Nik Theodore, University of Illinois at Chicago. Tough love, American style. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
New Labour at work
Long-term unemployment and the geography of opportunity
Nik Theodore, University of Illinois at Chicago
Tough love, American style
Britain would benefit from Clinton’s tough love: Forcing people to finding a job, which has worked in America, is a policy New Labour should adopt (Observer, 3 September 2006)
‘Too many British live on benefit for no better reason than they don’t want to work and there is too little insistence that they show determination and resource in finding some’ (Hutton, 2006).
Hutton on U.S. welfare reform I
Benefit rolls have declined Poverty rate among African-American
children fell to its lowest level in 2000 ‘Even cases of child maltreatment
have fallen’ US welfare reform has ‘worked even
better that its architects imagined…’
Hutton on U.S. welfare reform II
Some teenagers suffer from a lack of parenting
There ‘is a hard core of 10% of single mothers and other claimants in desperate straits who have neither benefit nor work’
‘Poverty is still widespread’
New Labour at work
Tony Blair: rethinking ‘the whole of our philosophy in relation to the labour market’
Embrace of new growth theories that call for an emphasis on macro-economic stability and supply-side intervention
The geography of opportunity
Will Hutton: ‘Too many British live on benefit for no better reason than they don’t want to work and there is too little insistence that they show determination and resource in finding some’ (Observer, 3 September 2006).
The geography of opportunity
David Blunkett: ‘Jobs are there for the taking in most parts of the country’ … ‘there is no hiding place’ for those who don’t accept their responsibility to find work (2001).
John Hutton: ‘can’t work – won’t work culture’ (2007)
The geography of opportunity
HM Treasury: ‘the worst concentrations of joblessness are in very small defined areas and are not caused by a lack of jobs…’ (2003).
The state you’re in
Unemployment rate Share LTU
1975 4.6% 14.8%
1985 11.5% 48.7%
European Commission, 1991
Final Report to the Second European Poverty Program
Relationship between local inactivity rate and local unemployment rate, 2005
0.0
5.0
10.0
15.0
20.0
25.0
30.0
35.0
40.0
0.0 2.0 4.0 6.0 8.0 10.0 12.0 14.0
Unemployment Rate
Eco
no
mic
In
acti
vity
Rat
e
Total and long-term claimant unemployment, 1983–2007
0500,000
1,000,0001,500,0002,000,0002,500,0003,000,0003,500,0004,000,000
October 1983
January 1987
April 1990
July 1993
October 1996
January 2000
April 2003
July 2006
Year
Un
emp
loym
ent
Co
un
t
Total Unemployed
Long-TermUnemployed
Share of unemployed who found jobs, Britain, 1998-2008
05
101520253035404550
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
Year
Per
cen
t le
avin
g c
laim
ant
roll
s fo
r em
plo
ymen
t
Unemployed
Long-termunemployed
Number of claimants leaving benefit rolls for employment, North East, 1998-2008
0
1,000
2,000
3,000
4,000
5,000
6,000
7,000
1998
1999
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Year
Nu
mb
er
of
cla
ima
nts
lea
vin
g r
olls
fo
r e
mp
loy
me
nt
6 months or less
1 year or more
2 years or more
New Deal for Young People
440,000 participants 41% moved into employment 34% moved into ‘sustained’ jobs lasting
13+ weeks ‘about half of those who found work
would have done so anyway’ given the cyclical expansion of the economy
Jane Millar 2000
New Deal for the Long-Term Unemployed
New Deal for the Long-Term Unemployed: 238,000 participants by February 2000 – 38,000 found jobs (only 32,000 found jobs lasting 13 weeks or more).
Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2000
Discussion
Robin Beveridge, Economic Inclusion Strategy Manager, One NorthEast
Kim Smith, Regional Employability Framework Manager, One NorthEast
Dave Wright, External Partnerships Manager, Job Centre Plus
Discussion